The Top 10 Worst Albums That Went Platinum

by dsussmanFebruary 11, 2010 at 10:00AM
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It's always been a pretty big deal for a record to sell over a 1,000,000 units and hit platinum status. But going platinum is by no means an indicator of a musician's talent. There have been a lot of artists over the years that have found success in the record sales department, but that doesn’t mean that the albums were actually any good in the first place.

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10. ...Baby One More Time – Britney Spears

There is no question that Britney Spears helped change the face of pop music with the release of 1999’s ...Baby One More Time, but the album also helped water down pop to new lows with some of the worst songs ever produced.

I still have problems processing that the album has sold more than 30 million copies. Mega-hit songs like "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" and "Sometimes" aren’t even catchy. I mean there is literally a song on this record called "E-Mail My Heart." E-Mail my f***ing heart?! You gotta be kidding me. At least bubblegum pop hits from the ‘80s had some addictive elements that were respectable in their own weird way.

With …Baby One More Time, Britney helped unleash vile, audio junk food that seemed to be some kind of sick practical joke on the music world. The only positive outcome of this record is that it made clean-cut white girls want to unleash their inner slut. Thanks, Brit.

9. Back to Bedlam - James Blunt

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Back to Bedlam has sold over 11 million albums worldwide since its release back in 2004. Blunt’s hit "You're Beautiful" dropped in early 2005 and achieved widespread success in North America, even reaching #1 on the charts for four consecutive weeks. After this ridiculous pop accomplishment, we were forced to watch on as Blunt received endless accolades from the pop mainstream as well as lonely housewives across the planet. Why do we love to torture ourselves with things so dreadful and give people like Blunt the idea that he is a respectable singer-songwriter legitimate skill? This guy even gets to have sex with supermodels. Now that s*** just ain’t right.

8. Human Clay – Creed

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Creed, one of the worst bands of our time, released the abomination that is Human Clay in late 1999. Since that time, it has sold over 11,000,000 copies in the U.S. alone. Thanks, douchebags.

I will say that “What If” is the only track on this entire record that I can let off the hook without tearing it a new one. It’s the band’s best attempt to show off their love for Pearl Jam/Alice In Chains and nowhere near as horrible as everything else on Human Clay.

I still remember when this band broke into the mainstream and it really bums me out that young kids watching MTV at the time thought that this was what a real rock bad was supposed to be. This record is the one of the classic examples of how mainstream rock ‘n’ roll has been dumbed down in past decade. Scott Stapp is easily one of the worst lead singers rock has ever seen and his band’s aptitude for creating epic sentimental trash should've been buried the second it first emerged.

7. To the Extreme - Vanilla Ice

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If I had to take a guess what the most returned album of all time was, the answer would have to be To The Extreme. The backlash of this record was one of the harshest ever seen and it seemed that listeners realized after they made Vanilla a millionaire overnight that he had no business being in the spotlight in the first place. Now I don’t think that Robert Matthew Van Winkle was as bad as people like Arsenio Hall made him out to be, but the fact that To The Extreme spent 16 weeks on the Billboard 200 and sold over 11 million copies worldwide is really quite insane. "Ice Ice Baby" is great as a one-hit-wonder, but the album that it lived on should never have hit the heights that it did.

6. Breathless – Kenny G

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Surprisingly enough, this is not the only record that has gone platinum for everyone’s favorite soprano saxophone–playing dweeb. Kenny has actually seen seven of his studio albums sell a million copies or more, with his other cheesy holiday LPs and live shows have also done extremely well in the mainstream music world. Either way, Breathless is Kenny’s crowning achievement.

First off, this guy straight up makes elevator music. With this said, it’s quite obvious that all of his music should not be allowed to be purchased and should only be checked out from the public library and no place else. How dare record companies make the public pay for something this dry and soulless? Instead, they unleashed this trash like it was free samples mall of Chinese food and watched on as smooth jazz-lovers from all over helped Mr. G sell over 75 million albums worldwide. 75 million! It boggles the mind to think that Kenny has sold 25 million more albums than Nirvana.